


Aftermath

by Asynca



Series: Ready, Set, Go! - Speed Prompts [27]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: BECAUSE HURT COMFORT AMIRITE, F/F, after the last event, goodbye friends I'm in speedy recovery hell, hurt comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 13:26:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10640754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asynca/pseuds/Asynca
Summary: Tracer takes a few minutes away from the evac ship to reflect on what's happened to her home. Set immediately after the Uprising in-game event. Speed prompt, written in 92 minutes.





	

Never in a million years would have I imagined this, never. Maybe I should have, though?

When I was a little girl lying in my bed at night and listening to drunk bloody chavs slagging off Omnics to each other on the street below, I always used to imagine hopping out of bed, sliding my window up, and just having it out with them right there and then. What did those wankers have against Omnics, anyhow? I never understood it. All of the Omnics I’d ever met were dead nice—I mean, I suppose you come across the odd nasty one, but that’s the same as all people, isn’t it? A few of them are nasty and do awful things?

It’s just… well, I never imagined _how_ nasty the awful things could be.

Seeing Kings Row—my home, everything I used to know—in rubble makes me sadder than I thought it would. Even though I know I helped saved loads of people, it still makes me sad. It makes me even sadder when those right pricks who bloody provoked it all come up to me all like, “Oi, thanks for killing all those evil robots. Scrap the lot of them, I say, we never should have tried to make peace with a bunch of war machines in the first place, they were a bunch of ticking time bombs.”

Overwatch has prepped me for how to respond to this stuff, “We protect _everyone_ , including Omnic people,” but sometimes, I just can’t say it. I want to shout at them, like _really_ shout, until my throat is raw. ‘It’s your fault!’ I want to say. ‘All of you, every time you attack someone omnic or hurt them or belittle them, it makes Null Sector stronger, can’t you see that? This is your fault, too!’. I can’t though. Of course I can’t. I just have to smile.

I can’t smile, though, not today. Not surrounded by _this_ , this devastation. King’s Row has been absolutely levelled. I can hardly even tell where my flat used to be.

I shouldn’t even be here, looking at it; I was supposed to be back at the evac ship an hour ago, but I can’t help it. I can’t help it. This was where I grew up.

This was my _home_.

I take a few steps out into the clearing where Torbjorn’s drop ship landed just hours ago, picking carefully around the rubble. I think the council flats used to be here. There are smashed plates amongst the debris—bone china tea cups, beautiful ones, ones someone’s grandmother would have loved as her only treasured possession. Old children’s toys. Artillery shells, car parts and dirty, torn clothes. And blood. So much blood, everywhere. There are probably bodies in there, too. People who never had anything, and now are now becoming dust themselves. It’s hard to see, honestly. I can barely look. I just can’t believe what Null Sector’s done.

At least it’s quiet now. I can’t hear canons, screaming and suppressive fire anymore. Somewhere—maybe there are still trees in the parks?—there are birds. The only sound I can hear is my feet, kicking aside rubble and finding somewhere to step. It’s so odd. A green grocer used to sing here, I think. Kids used to steal their parents’ house vacs and race them; _I_ used to do that—I can still remember everyone’s laughter. I can remember how much we fought over how unfair it was when someone got a newer, faster model. Now, there’s just silence.

Until I hear another pair of footsteps.

“Lena, are you alright?” She’s got such a lovely voice, Dr Ziegler. It’s gentle and warm, just like she is. Of course she’d come looking for me.

God, no. “Of course!” I lie, forcing my brightest smile. I don’t want Overwatch to think I’m some wuss who can’t handle war. I can handle it, I can. It’s just really hard when it’s your own backyard.

Her smile is gentle and not forced at all. When those big blue eyes of hers settle on me, I know it: she can see right bloody though me. To how tight my chest is, and to how much I just want to cry. I swallow.

She spends a moment watching me, and then puts one soft, warm hand on my shoulder and looks around us. “It must be very hard for you, Lena,” she says quietly. “But I want you to know something: I’ve seen this many times. People come back, and they rebuild. Communities pull together and build futures for their children out of what was nothing but shells and mortar. I promise it. You’ll recognise Kings Row again, one day. You’ll come home and everyone will be back.”

God, she’s making me want to cry. There are probably bodies under my feet. “Not everyone.”

Somehow, she knows what to say. Or she guesses. “No, not everyone,” she says gently.   
“But enough people, Lena. Enough.”

I should say something cheerful—I really, really don’t want someone like Dr Ziegler to think I can’t handle war. I’m the soldier, after all,   _she’s_ the doctor. She’s supposed to be the gentle one. But all I can think of is that bone china, smashed and trodden on. And how nobody in the word cares about it or knows _to_ care about it, even though it was once loved and cherished. I can’t speak. If I speak, I’ll cry, I just know it.

Somehow, Dr Ziegler knows it, too. Her eyes soften. “Oh, Lena... Come here.” Before I’m ever aware what’s happening, her arms are around me, and she’s hugging me against her. She’s stronger than I expected for someone who looks so delicate, but with her cheek against my forehead, I can feel her skin is just as soft as I expected it to be. She squeezes tears out of me, like that. I try to cry quietly, but it’s hard, and it’s hard not to let her feel me take each haggard breath—not that she’d probably mind much.

It’s just that I don’t want someone as beautiful as she is to think of me as a little kid. Because I’m not. I haven’t been since the slipstream accident.

I really, _really_ don’t want her to think of me as a child she needs to comfort, even if it’s nice to be held by her. “I’m alright,” I managed eventually. “Thank you, I’m alright. I’ll be okay.” I try to push away. My oh-so-stoic act is completely ruined by the fact my goggles are all fogged up from my tears.

“I know you will be,” she says and then notices my goggles and chuckles—it’s such a pleasant sound, it makes me _actually_ smile.

I push them up over my forehead and wipe my eyes. “Can we… pretend that didn’t just happen, please?”

When I look back at her, she’s smiling at me. God, she’s so _warm_. So very warm—personality, wise, I mean. Everything about her is warm. “Why would we do that?” she asks honestly. “Don’t be ashamed of feeling this way, Lena—it’s actually refreshing to have someone who clearly still feels something. The others can be…” Her beautiful nose wrinkles a little. “Well, less caring, I suppose. They forget that in war, real people lose their lives. The death count isn’t just a number. Each one represents a person with a life and with a family who loved them and _misses_ them. Each one of them is an empty bed tonight.”

I swallow. “You’re going to make me cry again.”

She laughs. “Sorry,” she says, and then gives me another brief hug. I enjoy it more than I should, for what we’re talking about. I _love_ that she’s opening up to me, I love it. It makes all of this feel a little better. “If it helps, Lena, I’ll probably make myself cry, too.”

We laugh briefly together, and then both take long, measured breaths. She speaks first. “Thank you for watching my back out there, today. I couldn’t have done it without you.” She’s speaking in a quiet voice and looking right at me.

My stomach flutters. I love the thought of her being grateful to me. I hope I get to save her _loads_ more. “And we’d all be dead without you, Dr Ziegler.”

She smiles. “Angela. It’s ‘Angela’ when we’re not on mission.”

Oh, god. I—Wow. You know when you suddenly realise you _really_ like someone? Like, really like? _Yeah_. “Angela, then.”

She drapes an arm around my shoulders. I think it’s just collegial, even if every single bit of me hopes beyond hope that it’s more. She squeezes my shoulder for a moment. “Let’s get back, shall we? ‘Lena was looking for survivors’ won’t be a proper alibi if they catch us both out here crying over fallen buildings!” She gives me that beautiful laugh again while I downright bloody _gaze_ at her, practically with star eyes. I not even sure I hope she doesn’t notice.

If she does, she doesn’t say anything. She just bids me to follow her, and together, we pick through the rubble back to the evac ship.

 

 


End file.
